Cleaning caked on soot on stove glass door

grumpyoldgal

Hello
We've only had our stove installed since Wednesday (I had started a thread regarding getting my wood burning), I've cleaned the window every day as it gets lots of soot that wipes off easily, but the bottom rim and the top left hand corner is really caked on that won't come off......I've tried the wet ash and newspaper.


I've now got a moisture meter and the wood we are burning is between 16 and 19%, so what else is it that is causing this staining ....... every time I see it it reminds me of nicotine (no idea why but it is very off putting!!) I must need to do something different but don't know why not. I am concerned how much it has accumulated in 5 nights!


The newspaper and ash don't shift it, will try to find some Calfire.

wintergirl

grumpyoldgal wrote: »

Hello
We've only had our stove installed since Wednesday (I had started a thread regarding getting my wood burning), I've cleaned the window every day as it gets lots of soot that wipes off easily, but the bottom rim and the top left hand corner is really caked on that won't come off......I've tried the wet ash and newspaper.


I've now got a moisture meter and the wood we are burning is between 16 and 19%, so what else is it that is causing this staining ....... every time I see it it reminds me of nicotine (no idea why but it is very off putting!!) I must need to do something different but don't know why not. I am concerned how much it has accumulated in 5 nights!


The newspaper and ash don't shift it, will try to find some Calfire.

Are you 'slumber' burning the wood, and do you have a flue temperature gauge, so you can keep the burner good and hot?

Even if the wood is under 20% moisture, you will still get gunk on the windows if you don't burn the stove at a high enough temperature. I know some stoves are better than others with their airwash systems. Ours stove is an Aarow - at the lower end of the mid priced stoves, but we always make sure the temp gets up to its 'operating' range of 200c as quickly as possible, and the glass only ever soots over slightly at the end of a burn, as the stove is cooling right down. It can easily be wiped off with damp newspaper dipped in the wood ash.

If you are getting a sticky residue on the glass already, it will be worse than that up the flue.

My suggesstion would be to get a stove temp gauge if you've not already got one, and give it a bit of a 'thrashing': Get it up to the 'safe' range fast with lots of kindly/ small logs, then put larger bits in, and keep the vents open until its really going. If its a small stove(5k or under) its quite hard to over fire it,as the firebox isn't big enough. Letting it burn good and hot for half an hour or so should burn off most of the nasty stuff from the glass, if the airwash is kept open fully.

suisidevw

Sounds like you're not burning it hot enough Grumpygal.

I'm not sure how people have such issues, we probably clean our glass once or twice a season, that's it. By burning at the right temp and using properly seasoned wood our viewing window is nearly always crystal clear!

grumpyoldgal

wintergirl wrote: »

Are you 'slumber' burning the wood, and do you have a flue temperature gauge, so you can keep the burner good and hot?

Even if the wood is under 20% moisture, you will still get gunk on the windows if you don't burn the stove at a high enough temperature. I know some stoves are better than others with their airwash systems. Ours stove is an Aarow - at the lower end of the mid priced stoves, but we always make sure the temp gets up to its 'operating' range of 200c as quickly as possible, and the glass only ever soots over slightly at the end of a burn, as the stove is cooling right down. It can easily be wiped off with damp newspaper dipped in the wood ash.

If you are getting a sticky residue on the glass already, it will be worse than that up the flue.

My suggesstion would be to get a stove temp gauge if you've not already got one, and give it a bit of a 'thrashing': Get it up to the 'safe' range fast with lots of kindly/ small logs, then put larger bits in, and keep the vents open until its really going. If its a small stove(5k or under) its quite hard to over fire it,as the firebox isn't big enough. Letting it burn good and hot for half an hour or so should burn off most of the nasty stuff from the glass, if the airwash is kept open fully.

thank you for this.......I don't have a temp guage so will get one. But in the interim, how do I get it to hot hot hot!? I burn the kindling and it burns really well. Vents are open, and I only close the primary vent once it is well established (not the kindling)......It is just below 5k. I really do appreciate your reply, but just not sure how to get it hotter - do I keep just adding kindling and forget the logs lol!!


I will also get some briquettes - but don't have any of these - where do you get these from?


I am a novice so I do appreciate everybody's patience!!

suisidevw

Don't try and get it hot hot hot until you have a temp guage. A quick ebay/amazon purchase adn it'll be on your doorstep tomorrow morning. This then goes onto the flue pipe and has an optimum temperature so you'll know how hot it should be without overfiring.

Ectophile

I would say the main things to get a decent fire going are:

1. Don't be too keen to shut down the air vents until the fire is going well, and there's a good bed of glowing embers (not just nicely burning wood). Give the fire plenty of air to start with.
2. Once the kindling is well alight, start with small sticks, bigger lumps of scrap wood, or logs split into smaller bits. You'll have little luck going from kindling to big logs in one go.
3. Make sure the logs are dry and properly seasoned. Burning damp wood is scarcely worth the effort. You get a miserable smouldering fire, a tarred up chimney and blackened stove glass.

grumpyoldgal

thank you - had much more success tonight - and could see the lovely glowing ember bed........no problems at all.


The only thing I want to ask further is - I closed the primary air when it was well ablaze and bedded in, just opened it a bit to give it a boost if the flames did die down a bit.


But if burning logs, do I leave the air wash open the entire time......I have done so far.


thank you

Greenfires

Yep - close the primary air completely once the fire is established and control it with the secondary alone. You can turn that down too - needs to be somewhere where you're getting nice rolling flames but not so low you're blackening the glass. Will take a week or so to fine tune your technique - but you'll soon have it cracked. Should be a pm for you by the way if you want a little bedtime reading! ;-)

matelodave

We've had ours on a couple of times already this year and as Greenfires suggests, get it good and hot, shut off the primary supply and control the fire with the airwash.

If we leave it fully open the wood burns quite fast and I suspect takes all the heat straight up the flue. Using a flue thermometer shows that the fire is quite cool with the airwash fully open. Tweaking it down until the flames are rolling nicely increases both the room & flue temperature and keeps the glass clean, slow burning just makes it black although we haven't had tar deposits on the glass.

I open both vents before I go to bed to burn anything out rather than leaving it to smoulder. I give the glass a quick wipe over with a damp kitchen roll and woodash and then polish it with a dry one every morning after the fire has been used - it's always a bit dirty but it comes off easily and leaves the glass pristine ready for the next time. The longer it's left the harder it is to remove.